I SHALL not be renewing my vows at the end of next month.
After more than 18 months of very serious discernment with my spiritual director, and much soul-searching, I do not believe I am called to live the life of a professed religious “until death” – which is what my solemn vows would have meant at the end of June.
The decision I have made was certainly not arrived at quickly.
It turns out, after diligent examination of countless events over an extensive period of time, that I have a very deep-seated need to show affective human love to another person and be loved back.
This will keep coming up; it is not compatible with celibate religious life.
I am not made for this life.
While I could live religious life fairly well, the question is not one of functionality but of ontology.
We can be good at something, without necessarily being called to do it.
That said, I do not regret my time in the order.
I think it has been tremendously fruitful and I am a much better person for having lived in this state of life for those years.
I genuinely believe I was meant to be a Dominican Friar for that period of time – just not until death.
I will hopefully take what I have learnt about myself, the faith, the Church and God during my time as a religious and bring it to bear in whatever I next do with my life.
Part of the reason the decision took so long, of course, is that I do not relish the prospect of having to “start again” any more than anyone else would in my position.
I am well aware of how hard this departure and re-start will be.
I am not (that) young and my employment prospects, as we recover from our recent glimpse of the apocalypse, are not great.
But I can hardly walk around telling others to “listen to the voice of the Lord” for the rest of my life, while ignoring what is being very loudly and clearly shouted at me through the objective circumstances of my life.
That would be a life lacking in integrity and that I cannot do.
The discernment was made more difficult because of the wonderfully developed theology of the redemptive value of suffering that we have as Catholics.
I had to ask myself very carefully: am I just trying to cast off my cross and do something wilful and capricious?
Or is the opposite the case?
Is my remaining a friar simply a reflex out of fear of what the future might hold, what people will say?
But I cannot live a lie on the basis of fear of third-party opinion or the future.
If this step is genuinely what I believe God is asking me to do, then: so be it.
What also made the discernment difficult is that I was comparing a presently existing reality – my religious life, which is fine, even good, in many respects – with a non-existent hypothetical future wherein I find someone to love me and put up with me for life.
But marriage and relationships are discerned in the particular, with regard to a specific individual, not in the abstract.
So all that I was actually discerning over that period of time is whether I am called to this religious life.
Answer – no – painful as it was to admit, having invested so much time and effort in the endeavour.
I should point out, however, that there are no rose-tinted glasses here.
I am well aware of all that could go wrong once I am back in the world.
I might never meet anyone who is willing to put up with me for life.
I might meet them, marry them, and they turn out to be awful.
Or, if that person isn’t, our children might be.
Life is hard. Everyone suffers. No life is perfect. I know.
Having said that, I am rather delighted with the decision.
Once made, I could have skipped down the hall in the priory.
The prospect of leaving the order has made me much more joyful than the prospect of staying ever did – which, while feelings are not in and of themselves determinative, when combined with many objective circumstances that will remain confined to the internal forum, point decisively towards the exit.
Many of my fellow seminarians and friars, upon learning of the news, initially acted as though I had thrown myself in front of a bus.
When I met each of them, the encounter was almost exactly replicated on every occasion: they approached me tentatively at first, wondering whether I had lost my mind or the faith.
After a few hours, having been assured that neither was the case, they were laughing as much as I was.
I have noticed over time that, whenever someone is disappointed with a decision I have made – whether entering the seminary or the order, or leaving them – it has always been based on some potential, hypothetical future that the person in question had mapped out in their mind.
But that ideative prospect had no connection with reality.
The smashing of idols is what causes disappointment.
Also, I think human beings are fairly innately conservative; we hate change and always presume it is for the worse.
This, as we know, is not necessarily the case: things could turn out better!
I read something of Gerald Vann OP recently which resonated with my period of discernment: “It is more important to be a great person than to be a great butcher or baker or candlestick maker; and if the only chance of achieving the first is to fail in the second the failure will be well worthwhile, the world will be well lost.”
Not that I consider my religious life a failure, by any means.
But there is a sense in which God, through the many twists and turns of our lives, is forever helping us to grow in love, to grow in our “likeness ’ to Him.
And that is the ultimate aim of our lives, regardless of our state of life; whether married, single, religious or cleric.
My period as a religious has helped me, I believe, to grow in love; and if God is genuinely calling me forth once more, then I can only hope that the positive trend will continue – uncertain as the prospects might appear at this moment.
So the closing of this chapter of my life is not so much “The End” as simply the latest instalment of “The Never-ending Story” of God’s infinite love for me, for each person and for the whole world.
It is a privilege and a joy to be included as a character in that tale, even if it is only a walk-on part.
I am very grateful for having been cast.
